


Post-Op

by sahem62896



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:35:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahem62896/pseuds/sahem62896
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened in the minutes immediately following 'Operation Toby'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Post-Op

**Author's Note:**

> Same story as before... I own nothing related to 'Oz' or the rights to the Linkin Park song at the beginning. This is just for fun and for free.

 

_"I've drawn regret from the truth of a thousand lies..." —Linkin Park_

 

Keller stood alone in his darkened pod, looking morosely at the empty top bunk. Beecher's bunk. Beecher, who would now be occupying a bed in Benchley Memorial long enough to get casts on his broken bones, and then would be sleeping a bed in Oz's infirmary getting his meals through a tube up his nose until he could use his own arms again. Up until this moment, Keller had only had the barest understanding of the word remorse. Now he was becoming intimately acquainted with it, and with every minute that passed, he found himself wishing he could go back to the blissful ignorance he had been privileged to enjoy. Hell, he even wished he had never taken all those drugs and gotten on that motorcycle all those months ago. If he hadn't done that, he wouldn't be standing here, looking at Beecher's bunk with a heavy ball of wretched feelings in his belly which he would have given anything to be able to grasp and rip out of himself. He had, in fact, escaped to the latrine sometime during dinner and shoved two fingers down his throat, only to discover that unlike his meal, he was unable to puke it out either. It was there to stay, it seemed.

Three hours earlier, Schillinger and he had left Beecher screaming in unthinkable agony with all four of his limbs bent into hideous angles. They hurried past Metzger who was shooing them out of the gym before anyone could observe them. Essentially, 'Operation Toby' had been a success. They had not only gotten Beecher to succumb to his booze addiction again, but had also teased his lovesick heart and his guilt-ridden mind to the point that his misery was obvious to everyone. Hoping for some physical relief from all three problems, Beecher had allowed Metzger to escort him to the gym having no idea that the hack was in on the plan as well. Once he got Beecher there, all three of them pounced on him, shattering his arms and legs and destroying whatever was left of his spirit. Now the only remaining task was for Keller to tell McManus that he knew his cellie had been drinking again and that his best guess was that the sick bastard behind this attack was some prison bootlegger who had had not been paid off soon enough.

As the door banged shut behind them, muffling Beecher's howls, Schillinger smiled broadly and pumped his fist in excitement. Keller, on the other hand, was stony and walked with deliberate slowness behind Schillinger's delighted trot.

"Oh man, that was fucking great!"

"Mmm," hummed Keller.

"Just wish I could stay there and watch while Metzger tells him what's going to happen to him if he breathes a word about this to anyone," Schillinger said. "Betcha he gives one of those broken legs a good kick when he does it."

"Yeah," Keller responded colorlessly.

Schillinger made a quick one-eighty and pointed at Keller. "I particularly loved that part where you told him you never loved him, Keller. Seeing his face at that moment... shit, I thought he was actually going to cry!"

"Glad you liked it," Keller said as he tried to brush past Schillinger.

Schillinger reached out an arm and cut off his path. "Hey, what's the rush?"

"Look, I don't know about you," Keller said, "but I'd kinda like to get the hell out of here before I'm found too close to the scene. So would you please get out of my fucking way?"

Schillinger not only didn't get out of his way, but instead stepped right in front of Keller with his nose an inch or two away from the other man's. "Excuse me?"

"Move it, Vern!" Keller said between his teeth.

Schillinger slammed the heel of his hand into Keller's shoulder. "Where'd this fucking attitude come from?" he demanded.

"Oh don't be stupid," Keller replied. "You think I did this for any other reason than to keep you and your fucking Brotherhood from squealing on me about those guys I whacked out there? I did my part, now fuck off!" He knew that the words weren't going to crush Schillinger, but he wanted to be done with the old Nazi as quickly and with as much finality as possible.

"I don't give a fuck why you did it," Schillinger said. "All I wanna know why you've suddenly turned into such a goddamned..."

"A goddamned what?" Keller asked, with a nasty grin of his own. "Faggot? That the word you're looking for, asswipe?"

Schillinger's glare sharpened a bit as he recalled Beecher hurling the same epithet at him soon after he had gotten out of the hole for shitting on his face. Then his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open into a gigantic O. "Oh my God!" he whispered. "You _do_ love him!"

Keller felt his grin slip and tried to compensate for it with a snort. "Shut up," he said trying his best to sound dismissive.

It didn't work. Schillinger's gaping mouth curved up at the corners and his eyes started to gleam. "You fell _in love_ with him!"

He tried to sidestep Schillinger, but to no avail. There he was again right in his face. "Fuck you, Vern!"

Shillinger pointed his index finger at Keller and burst into a guffaw. "I can't fucking believe it!" he crowed. "Christopher fucking Keller, con man extraordinaire..."

Keller snatched the front of Schillinger's shirt in his fists and tried to ram him into the wall behind him. Schillinger's good humor evaporated with frightening speed as he saw Keller make his move. The moment he felt the tug on the front of his shirt he threw his weight onto his back foot, grabbed one of Keller's wrists, and pinched the thumb inward until the pad of it was squashed against the heel of his hand. As Keller cried out, Schillinger tore Keller's hand off his shirt and then, seeing the open hole in Keller's stance, drove his knee into the pit of Keller's stomach. Keller landed on his ass with an audible thump and started gasping as he tried to force air past his traumatized abdomen. Schillinger stood over him with a sneering, tight-lipped smile crawling over his features. It was the same face the Aryan had made a few months earlier as he stood over Keller with a blade in his hand threatening to emasculate him if he didn't help pull the string on Beecher. He wedged the toe of his boot under Keller's chin and forced it up until their eyes met.

"Didn't see that one coming, did you?" he asked.

Keller grunted, trying to get his diaphragm to start moving again on it's own.

Schillinger knelt down, his face now as unemotional as Keller's had been earlier. "Listen carefully, prag," he commanded, "you may have just gone along with this in order to keep me and the rest of the Brotherhood from exposing your little rash of faggot killings in Chelsea before you got here, and that's fine and dandy. You kept your end of the bargain and I will keep mine, but get this through that bag of shit on your shoulders, Keller: this is far from over. Metzger already knows his place, but you need to remember yours. I still fucking own you the way I owned you in Lardner, and don't think for one fucking minute that you've gotta suck my dick or even be in the Brotherhood to be my bitch." A repulsive smile spread across his face and he added. "Hell, I don't even have to brand your ass like I did to Beecher to drive that point home, do I?"

Air wheezed in and out of Keller's mouth in audible gasps. The shock of having been kicked in the belly was fading and rage was starting to take its place. "I'm going to fucking kill you," he said in a raspy voice.

Schillinger shrugged as if the threat was no big deal. "Give it your best shot," he said. "But if anything happens to me, Beecher is dead. Not broken, but dead. And he will die slowly, suffering every second and fucking begging me to end it." He leaned in, putting his mouth millimeters away from Keller's ear. "And I will pin it on you," he whispered.

Keller whipped his head to the left and met Schillinger's eyes with his own. He knew his face was betraying him by showing the fear, but he couldn't help it.

"Oh yes," Schillinger continued, leaning in until his forehead touched Keller's. "Believe me when I say that I can make it happen very easily. And while you're digesting that, chew on this: You're not the first fucker around here I have steamrolled, nor will you be the last. There are men all over Oz who have done less to get here yet are more afraid of me and the Brotherhood than of death itself. How many lengths do you think they would go to in order to get me off their radars? I mean, hey... all it took was putting enough fear into you, and I got you to break the arms and legs of someone you love." He paused to let that sink in, taking silent pleasure in watching the hate fill Keller's eyes. He smirked and then added, "Prison can sure be a lonely place when you don't know who to trust. I mean, _anyone_ could turn on you. Just ask Beecher when he gets out of the hospital. That is, of course, if he doesn't get someone to kill you while he's recuperating."

Keller hawked back and spat in Schillinger's face.

Schillinger flinched, then closed his eyes and wiped the spittle off his face. "You know, I may have had that coming to me," he said, "so I'll let it slide. Enjoy your freebee, and I'll enjoy watching you writhe like a worm on a hot plate while you try to figure out just who the hell your friends are around here. Going to be a hell of a show seeing you try to negotiate that curvy little street... _and_ the one where you try desperately to make this up to your beloved without spilling the beans on your old buddy Vern." With that, Schillinger got up, pulled the bottom of his shirt taut over his frame and then shook his head in a prissy little movement that was quite unlike him. He took two steps away from Keller, then looked over his shoulder at the man still sitting on the floor.

"By the way, Keller," he said, "not that it really needs saying at this point, but you're a dead man if you say anything to anyone about what just went down."

Keller watched him go and began to feel the gooey, tar-like sickness rise in his belly and start to congeal. It was the same sickness he would later try to vomit up at dinnertime after listening to the other inmates discuss how Beecher looked a human pretzel when they wheeled him out and speculate about who might be behind it.

Now, as he stood there looking at Beecher's empty bunk, he cursed himself for his stupidity. He had completely forgotten whom he was dealing with. Schillinger was just the kind of asshole to cover every angle so that he couldn't possibly even the score.

Not even with Beecher.

_I particularly loved that part where you told him you never loved him, Keller. Seeing his face at that moment... shit, I thought he was actually going to cry!_

Yes, he was going to cry. Keller had seen it too.

_Oh Christ, Toby, I'm so sorry._

Keller lowered himself on to his own bunk without getting undressed. He waited until the guards working the night shift had completed their first bed check before before he let a tear escape. Others followed and he buried his face in his pillow as they came.

_I'll set this right. I fucking promise I will. Oh Jesus Christ, I do love you, Toby._

It was the first time in his life that he had ever cried himself to sleep, and as much as it embarrassed him to do it, he discovered it made just a little bit of the sickness in his belly go away.


End file.
